


One Little Kiss

by tornyourdress



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24430372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornyourdress/pseuds/tornyourdress
Summary: When a kiss is not just a kiss.
Relationships: Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin/Lily Evans Potter
Kudos: 9





	One Little Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written/posted April 2005, for thieving_gypsy (B).

So here’s what you need to know about me and Remus: it never should have happened. Ever. I mean, okay, there are people you kiss and you vaguely regret it and you cringe every time you see them but it’s okay because in the end because it was just pure physical attraction and nothing else. Those are okay.

Then there are people who you know. Not just know. Like. Love. Not in a romantic I-want-to-marry-you sort of way, because who thinks about marriage when they’re sixteen? I don’t. Okay, so some of my friends do, but that’s different. I mean, Alice has a boyfriend, she’s been going out with Frank since forever and it makes sense that they talk about getting married someday. But I don’t have a boyfriend. I mean, there is someone that maybe I could possibly be interested in if he wasn’t such a complete and utter wanker –

Okay. See. That’s where it all began. Me and Remus sitting in the common room when everyone else was at the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match, and me saying, “James Potter is a complete and utter wanker.”

You know, I don’t even remember what it was he’d done. I mean, he’s always doing things. Creating trouble. Strutting around the place, acting like he’s so great just because he can do a bit of magic that isn’t in the textbooks and because some of the girls (the deluded brainless ones) actually think he’s attractive. Well, he is attractive, I suppose, if you’re going to make me be objective about it, but the attitude cancels it out.

So I’m there, annoyed and pissed-off and getting out of my seat and pacing, and Remus grabs me by the shoulders and sits me down again and tells me to calm down and it’s all okay and he’s not that bad really, only him defending James (you’d swear he was in love with him sometimes, honestly) gets me even more angry, and I start demanding to know why exactly someone as wonderful as Remus (because he is, he’s lovely and kind and decent and caring and so much more) bothers being friends with James, and Remus is just looking at me sort of sadly and says that he’s not wonderful at all and he’s just so, so pathetic and unaware of how sweet he really is, so I kiss him.

And we stay like that for minutes or maybe hours, I can’t tell. Time has stopped. And then he puts his arm around my waist and that breaks it, and I jump away, and oh. Big eyes are staring at me, so hurt and disappointed in me for kissing him and then regretting it almost instantly. And I’m disappointed in myself enough as it is without having him feel that way about me too, because it’s the worst thing in the world, to have someone you care about look at you like that.

It breaks my heart. Not in a romantic burning-old-love-letters sort of way, but in the way that just makes me like something inside me has died, something like innocence, or maybe the belief that I’m a good person, because good people don’t do this. Not to their friends. Not to Remus.

And that was it, really, and maybe it seems stupid that one little kiss can have such an impact, but it can. I mean, kisses are never trivial, not when someone means it. Not when someone gets hurt. Not when someone is so terrifying close to tears right in front of you, and when they can’t talk to you for days, and when even when you do start talking to each other again, it’s not like it used to be because you can’t hug them the way you want to so badly because it might lead to that something else that can’t ever happen again.

That’s all I want to change, that one kiss. Not anything else, not anything that’s going to change the fabric of the universe or anything, so can you just give me that Time Turner and let me get on with it, please?


End file.
